It is that time of the year again! Awards season is upon us. Today, the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations were revealed. Tomorrow we’ll find out the Golden Globe nominees. Lets take a look at the movies and television shows that SAG is honoring:

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE

Argo

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Les Misérables

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE IN A DRAMA SERIES

Boardwalk Empire

Breaking Bad

Downton Abbey

Homeland

Mad Men

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE IN A COMEDY SERIES

30 Rock

The Big Bang Theory

Glee

Modern Family

Nurse Jackie

The Office

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Bradley Cooper (Pat), Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis (Abraham Lincoln), Lincoln

John Hawkes (Mark), The Sessions

Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean), Les Misérables

Denzel Washington (Whip), Flight

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Jessica Chastain (Maya), Zero Dark Thirty

Marion Cotillard (Stephanie), Rust and Bone

Jennifer Lawrence (Tiffany), Silver Linings Playbook

Helen Mirren (Alma Reville), Hitchcock

Naomi Watts (Maria), The Impossible

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Alan Arkin (Lester Siegel), Argo

Javier Bardem (Silva), Skyfall

Robert De Niro (Pat Sr), Silver Linings Playbook

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Lancaster Dodd), The Master

Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens), Lincoln

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln), Lincoln

Anne Hathaway (Fantine), Les Misérables

Helen Hunt (Cheryl), The Sessions

Nicole Kidman (Charlotte), The Paperboy

Maggie Smith (Muriel Donnelly), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Steve Buscemi (Nucky), Boardwalk Empire

Bryan Cranston (Walter White), Breaking Bad

Jeff Daniels (Will McAvoy), The Newsroom

Jon Hamm (Don Draper), Mad Men

Damian Lewis (Brody), Homeland

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

Claire Danes (Carrie Mathison), Homeland

Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley), Downton Abbey

Jessica Lange (Sister Jude), American Horror Story: Asylum

Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick), The Good Wife

Maggie Smith (Violet), Downton Abbey

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

Alec Baldwin (Jack Donaghy), 30 Rock

Ty Burrell (Phil Dunphy), Modern Family

Louis C.K. (Louie), Louie

Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper), The Big Bang Theory

Eric Stonestreet (Cameron Tucker), Modern Family

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

Edie Falco (Jackie Peyton), Nurse Jackie

Tina Fey (Liz Lemon), 30 Rock

Amy Poehler (Leslie Knope), Parks and Recreation

Sofia Vergara (Gloria), Modern Family

Betty White (Elka), Hot in Cleveland

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TV MOVIE/MINISERIES

Kevin Costner (Devil Anse Hatfield), Hatfields & McCoys

Woody Harrelson (Steve Schmidt), Game Change

Ed Harris (John McCain), Game Change

Clive Owen (Ernest Hemingway), Hemingway & Gellhorn

Bill Paxton (Randall McCoy), Hatfields & McCoys

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE/MINISERIES

Nicole Kidman (Martha Gellhorn), Hemingway & Gellhorn

Julianne Moore (Sarah Palin), Game Change

Charlotte Rampling (Eva Delectorskaya), Restless

Sigourney Weaver (Elaine Barrish Hammond), Political Animals

Alfre Woodard (Ouiser), Steel Magnolias

OUTSTANDING STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Bourne Legacy

The Dark Knight Rises

Les Misérables

Skyfall

OUTSTANDING STUNT ENSEMBLE IN A TELEVISION SERIES

Boardwalk Empire

Breaking Bad

Game of Thrones

Sons of Anarchy

The Walking Dead

Leave a comment with your predictions! Tomorrow the Golden Globe nominations will be posted and we’ll have them up in the afternoon. Stay tuned!

It looks like ABC is doing the Daytime shuffle come September as Katie Couric’s new syndicated talk show will take the east coast timeslot that General Hospital has held for as long as I can remember. That will move General to an hour earlier into the current spot of the cancelled talk show, The Revolution, and the spot that was long held by One Life to Live. The shift begins on September 10th. This past week ABC’s last soap took home five Daytime Emmys including Best Drama, Best Lead Actor Anthony Geary, Best Supporting Actor Jonathan Jackson, Best Supporting Actress Nancy Lee Grahn, and Outstanding Directing Team. This news comes off recent news that One Life to Live actress Kassie DePaiva will reprise her role of Blair Cramer on General for the second time since One Life went off the air. Another bit of casting news concerns the hiring of Richard Steinmetz, formerly on Loving, who has been cast as the son of an unknown former character who will have a big upcoming storyline with Sonny.

BJ Novak joins Mindy Kaling and James Spader and will not return as a series regular in a season that is shaping up for a lot of change on The Office. That doesn’t mean that we’ve seen the last of Novak’s Ryan as he is scheduled to make reoccurring appearances in the ninth season of the NBC comedy. Novak of course has been a producer and writer on the series, but it is unknown if he’ll continue writing episodes. He joined Mindy Kaling over on her new show, The Mindy Project, as an executive producer on the pilot, but it does not appear that he will be a regular producer on the project. Returning to The Office next season are co-stars Ed Helms, John Krasinski, and Jenna Fischer who are all in long contract talks that thankfully ended successfully for the show. Catherine Tate has been upgraded to a series regular (here is hoping they continue to make her character a bit more likeable as they started at the end of the eight season). Also interesting to note is that this season will try to launch a Rainn Wilson lead Dwight Schrute spinoff. Will any other Office regulars join him? Maybe Angela Kinsey’s Angela Martin, the mother of his child. We’ll have to wait and see.

It seems like every couple years we get an all new animated Spider-Man series. I grew up (and was introduced to the webslinger with Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and before I was born there was the very cheesy but loveable Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. In the years since Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie we’ve had a decent short lived CG animated series from MTV and The Spectacular Spider-Man. which was geared towards very young children. Now we’ll be getting an adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis’ long running Ultimate Spider-Man series for Disney XD.

Set in high school, the series was a fresh (and updated for the times) look at Spider-Man’s origin and early years. Villains were reintroduced, sometimes with a twist (Spider-Man’s father helped create Venom) and things were a lot more straight forward (Bendis did not have to worry about decades of continuity). I’m actually surprised that the series hasn’t been brought to the small screen yet, and I think it is ripe for the screen. I skipped Spectacular, but I might just give this series a chance.

The official synopsis:

This animated series from Marvel follows Peter Parker who, as the storyline begins, has been Spider-Man for just one year. He’s fought villains, saved lives, but still has much to learn about being a super-hero. Now, Nick Fury gives Peter the chance to go to the next level — to train to be a real super-hero and become The Ultimate Spider-Man. But before he can do that, Peter will have to learn how to work with a team of fellow teenage super-heroes.

The series will be paired with The Mighty Avengers for a Marvel Comics hour of animated shows!

This past week, Ricky Gervais let it slip that he will be returning to The Office in the season’s final episode, reprising his role of David Brent from the original UK series. He appeared earlier this season in a blink and you’d miss it encounter with Steve Carell’s Michael Scott. Also guest starring in the hour long season finale is Arrested Development‘s Will Arnett, who Gervais has spoken about wanting to get to fill Carell’s large shoes in the past. Could Arnett be joining the show full time for its 8th season? Or could they be distracting us with Arnett and are really just slipping Gervais into the role he knows so well? We will not know for sure until the end of the season. In the meantime we should just enjoy Carell’s final episodes (the last of which will be in the final week of April).

TV News Blurbs…

TNT has renewed Southland for ten more episodes. Ben McKenzie, Shawn Hatosy and Regina King are all returning for the show’s forth season. The network has also ordered ten episodes of a new crime drama, Perception, which stars Eric McCormack and Rachael Leigh Cook. In the new series, McCormack is an eccentric neuroscientist who uses his unique skills to help the FBI solve crimes.

NBC has finally announced the premiere of The Paul Reiser Show. The new show from the Mad About You star focuses on Reiser as a fictional version of himself as he struggles with life after having a successful TV series and tries to get along with a new group of “friends” – the parents of his kids and his wife’s friend’s husbands. The show shot their pilot in a park that is walking distance to my home, so I’m really interested to see how they used the location and I love supporting stuff that shoots nearby (shout out to Parks and Rec also!)

Phew, all of that writing (and news reporting) really makes me want to take a break. I think it is time that I take a vacation to a nice holiday park for the weekend. Don’t you need a break too?

Another week and more entertainment news. Welcome to a new edition of The Pit. This week is going to be a little shorter than usual.

NBC is making Thursday funnier by adding an additional hour to their established comedy block. Their new lineup will be: (8) Community, (8:30) Perfect Couples, (9) The Office, (9:30) Parks and Recreation, (10) 30 Rock, and (10:30) Outsourced. As usual I’ll be Tivo-ing The Office, 30 Rock and Community and will not be tuning into the other shows.

Comic Preview: X-Factor #211. This week Peter David has the X-Factor gang in a battle royal in the streets of Las Vegas as their plan to get the attention of a “death goddess” actually works and they must face off with her undead warriors to free one of her slaves. “What happens in Vegas stays- Ah, gets you killed?”

The spy action/comedy/drama Chuck is still easily my favorite show on television and should be yours! If you’ve missed a recent episode, head over here and give the show a chance! It really is a creative high for TV.

The Virtual Fall Movie season is in full swing over at Hollywood the Game with a new Batman movie coming out this Friday. Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about? Then check out the site!

Ah… no more re-runs! It was so difficult for me to wait until Thursday on the opening week of NBC’s fall programming especially since I have direct tv HD. The peacock network is finally returning to its “must-see” sit-com status on Thursday nights with new episodes of “Community,” “30 Rock,” “The Office,” and the all-new “Outsourced.”

The best of the group, at least in my opinion, was the second-season premiere of “Community.” My satellite tv reception never looked so good as when I kicked my feet up while the great ensemble cast prepared for another semester at Greendale College. The interplay between Greendale’s coolest study group (made up of Joel McHale as ‘Jeff,’ Gillian Jacobs as ‘Britta,’ Chevy Chase as ‘Pierce,’ Yvette Nicole Brown as ‘Shirley,’ Danny Pudi as ‘Abed,’ Donald Glover as ‘Troy,’ and Alison Brie as ‘Annie’) was as clever as ever. The best example: when it is revealed that Jeff and Britta had sex at the end of season one on the group’s conference table, everyone jumps up with a collective “AHHH!!!” that nearly masks Troy’s true reaction of “AHHH-SOME!!!”

My favorite part of the season premiere, though, had to be the guest-starring appearance of comedy legend Betty White as the group’s new anthropology professor. Thanks to her, the show’s writers were able to resolve the issues remaining from the first season without being overly sentimental.

I feel like the current season of TV is flying by! Can you believe that we are 4 hours into the last 17 hours of Lost ever? And how great has the new season of Chuck been? Who would have thought that both Brandon Routh and Kristen Kreuk would fit seamlessly into the cast? I want them both to join up full time (esp the ex-Superman).

So, have you been too busy? Miss some TV? Well, be thankful for the Internet, cause most of the good stuff is offered online for free viewing!

In the latest episode of Lost, we get a look at the life of John Locke in the “other world”, while Sawyer learns more about the island from the Smoke Monster. I have to admit, the “other world” Locke has been the most interesting stuff about the character since season 1. I haven’t been much of a fan of his, but I like where they are going with this and for the first time I’m interested to see where he will end up.

Over on Chuck, our favorite nerd herder is getting pretty damn good at the spy game. “Chuck versus the Mask” sees Chuck and new (sorta almost) galpal Hannah (Kristin Kreuk) on a mission together, the only problem is that she isn’t a spy.

In the new episode of The Office, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE! Manager that is. Who will keep the job? Michael or Jim? Is there really any question here? I also have to add, I’ve really been enjoying Kathy Bates on the show. She’s a nice addition to the cast.

This next link is from Phasekitty,Life Unexpected on the CW. The show is in the vein of old school WB shows (Dawson’s Creek anyone?).

The nominations for the 2009 Emmy Awards were annouced this morning. How on the ball are they? Check out these lists and decide for yourself. I’ll be posting my personal thoughts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned…